Church and his wife retreated to the island in 1865 after the deaths of their two children from diphtheria, but when they returned to the United States the following year they were expecting a child. The double rainbow that spans the canvas, notable for the reversal of the color spectrum that occurs in the second of its two bands, is technically known as Alexander’s band, and Church’s meticulous depiction of it suggests that he may have consulted a scientific treatise when painting the scene.įurthermore, the tropical fauna emerging from the bottom right corner of the painting is based on botanical sketches Church made while living in Jamaica. Despite being a highly theatrical, fantastical, and symbolic landscape, the scene incorporates a number of scientifically accurate and observed elements. By the time he died in 1900 he was a forgotten artist.“Rainy Season in the Tropics” is one of the most celebrated works by the second-generation Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church. ![]() His success began to wane in the 1870s and in 1880, suffering badly from rheumatism, he abandoned the large format and concentrated on decorating his house and depicting its appearance under different climatic conditions in small oil sketches. In 1860 Church, by then at the peak of his career, married Isabel Carnes and bought a plot of land overlooking the Hudson River, where he built Olana, a Persian-style country mansion where he spent his last years. ![]() His travelling companion Reverend Louis Legrand Noble, Thomas Cole’s biographer, published an account of the expedition in After Icebergs with a Painter (1861). He visited the Labrador Peninsula, Newfoundland and painted several iceberg landscapes. In 1859 Church exchanged the tropical regions for the distant North. The showing of his painting of The Niagara Falls (Washington, Corcoran Gallery of Art) in 1857 in New York, London and other European cities earned him a reputation as the great American painter. He also made several visits to the Niagara Falls, another of the places of pilgrimage for painters of the time. The sketches he produced during his travels gave rise to some of the most memorable paintings of the Cayambe, Cotopaxi and Chimborazo volcanoes. Following in Humboldt’s footsteps, he made two trips to South America in spring 1853 and in 1857. Cosmos taught him the harmonious unity of the universe, which Church translated into grandiose works combining broad panoramas with an almost scientific study of the details. ![]() The writings of the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) would have a determining influence on Church’s work. His exhibition at the American Art Union in 1847 established him as one of the most promising young artists of the day. In 1845 he made his debut at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design, of which he later became a member and where his works were shown continuously throughout his career. Little by little, the theories of John Ruskin, from whom Church learned that a thorough study of nature could reveal the essential truths of the world, distanced him from the moralistic and epic landscapes of his master. ![]() Church was the first student of Thomas Cole, the father of the Hudson River School, who instilled in him his allegorical and majestic vision of the American scenery, which is already apparent in the young painter’s earliest landscapes of New England.
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